My Country 'Tis of Thee
by voltaire22
Summary: Post Fallout 3. English. Rated T. The Confederacy founded at the capital wasteland has expanded. Its forces are divided against the advances of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts's enslaved android armies. The Lone Wanderer has to achieve a short, victorious war against the enslaved android armies of the Commonwealth.


"My country, 'tis of thee!" the Lone Wanderer roared, belching out the song at the top of his lungs. It was quite unnecessary, of course, for the power armored masses behind him had personal comms built into their helmets.

"Sweet land of liberty!" said power armored masses shouted back.

"Of thee I sing; land where my fathers died!" a distinct mechanical voice answered.

The wetlands of the state that was once called Florida trembled as the pinnacle of American robotics marched alongside the forces of the East Coast Confederacy. The army of conquest hollered their approval of the great patriot.

"Land of the pilgrims' pride!" the figure at the head of the army shouted, pumping a fist to his heart in honor of his recently arisen comrade.

"From ev'ry mountainside!" the chorus reached a new high note, jubilant at their assured victory.

"Let freedom ring!" Liberty Prime sang.

He, for none dared question Liberty Prime's masculine virility, grabbed a boulder and tossed it at the band of raiders that was gathering to oppose the conquering army. A radioed ultimatum had been issued to the denizens of this city, and all who wished to join the newborn state were welcomed to stay indoors and put up white flags on their windows.

The battle for Miami, the last stronghold of anti-Confederate resistance in Florida, began.

"My native country thee!" a massive super mutant sang as he loaded his signature weapon, the experimental MIRV.

"I can't wait to find you, so I can kill you as a personal favor to Uncle Sam! Hooah!" a gutsy-class robot let loose a few rounds of superheated plasma at the rallying raiders, though they were not nearly in range. Eight mini nukes were launched from that ridiculously overpowered piece of so-called experimental artillery on Fawkes's shoulder.

"Land of the noble free!" a reformed and now more or less sane and independent Clover shouted, with a bottle of whiskey in her left hand and a favored .44 magnum in her right.

"Thy name I love; I love thy rocks and rills!" this time, the great patriot produced a gigantic barrel full of Jameson from his back and tossing it at another gathering of raiders.

The Confederacy's radioed ultimatum for surrender promised mercy and citizenship to the innocent. What it also promised was death to raiders and slavers.

"Thy woods and templed hills! the army at the Lone Wanderer's back cheered as several incendiary rockets ignited a hellish conflagration where the Jameson was spilled. Alcohol was infinitely replaceable. Oil was not, hence the use of alcohol in war.

"My heart with rapture thrills, like that above!" vertiberds taken as spoils of war from the War for the Capital Wasteland tossed away all pretense at stealth and blared out the lyrics at maximum volume from their loudspeakers.

The costs in manpower and materials in the reconstruction of Naval Air Station Key West were validated by the uncontested aerial superiority over Miami airspace.

Still, the Lone Wanderer thought, that it was because the fledgling Confederacy found no organized opponent in uniting the American east coast from Boston to Miami. There were the occasional local hegemons, true, like those of New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, and the United Carolinas. However, similar ideals saw New York and Philadelphia added to the Confederacy. The oligarchs of Atlanta, holed up in the former CNN headquarters, decided it would be best not to aggravate the hordes of power armored Capital wastelanders and joined the Confederacy by freeing all of their slaves. The United Carolinas joined when their wealthiest merchants, fearing that war would rob them of their biggest market, staged a coup that allowed the Confederate flag to be raised over Raleigh. Rapid expansion of the Confederacy owed much to these long-established local powers joining it and the Brotherhood's inclusive recruitment policies in Virginia and Delaware. The arms production from the recently liberated Pitt helped arm the growing army.

The Commonwealth, though, was now marching its armies across what used to be the northern part of New York state.

As soon as the Florida campaign was over, all Confederate troops were heading north to stave off a potential siege of New York City itself.

The Lone Wanderer jolted as his hair dresser elbowed him. "Let music swell the breeze!"

"And ring from all the trees!" Butch led the chorus. "Sweet freedom's song!"

Connecticut was not ruled by any united government, and would not be able to resist the Commonwealth's armies. What their armies lacked in power armors and energy weapons, they made up for with mass-produced guns and ammunition made by slave labor.

A.I. labor, true, but a fully sentient A.I. had the same rights as a sentient organic. All sentient beings had the freedom of art, fair compensation for labors, speech, trade, and travel. That was one of the founding principles of the Confederacy's Constitution. The Commonwealth had to be opposed.

"Let all free tongues awake!" Liberty Prime modified the song a little, for he was certainly no mortal.

"Let all that live partake!" the mortals indulged the great patriot, for no man would dare suggest that Liberty Prime was not a living being.

The elders of the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel wanted the technology of truly artificial intelligence, so that they might put rational restrictions on it. The robots needed functional morality logarithms before they could be integrated into society, after all. The Confederacy couldn't afford rogue robots running around and committing crimes, for instance. It was hard enough to integrate the necrohumans into society, and the average Confederate citizen wouldn't take kindly to thieving and murdering robots.

The Lone Wanderer considered how ironic it was: the southern 'Confederacy' fighting for freedom and the northern 'Commonwealth' fighting for oppression. It was history reversed, if the books about the American Civil War were to be believed.

"Let rocks their silence break, the sound prolong!" the M-1 Abraham class tanks, the few that were restored by Brotherhood scribes anyway, were finally in range of the raiders and slavers. The main weapons were standardized by variants, but all wreaked havoc on the motley collection of untrained raiders and slavers.

Despite their advantage in military technologies, for the data retrieved from the Pentagon and the Enclave ensured the Confederacy's technological superiority, the Confederates had to police a much larger territory. The armies of New York and Philadelphia were tied down in New York City. Meanwhile, the armies of Atlanta and the Carolinas had to be used to police the rest of the Confederacy. The fighting force of the Capital wasteland, Virginia, and Delaware was also tied down in policing the south. In addition, there were certain places that required many guards at all times such as Three Mile Island, the Pentagon, the Citadel, the White House, CNN headquarters, the research centers at the University of Virginia and University of Pennsylvania, the major East Coast forts, etc.

Recruitment for a new army was an option, but not one that the Confederacy could afford. Reconstruction was difficult even with the purified water flowing from the Jefferson Memorial and the technological superiority of the Brotherhood. To take manpower away from the reconstruction was ill-advised in a nation that had just started producing its own currency, embarrassingly with the Confederacy's founders engraved in them, and an industrious economy.

"Our fathers' God to Thee!" it was widely accepted, of course, that God was more a figure of speech than the Christian God if one was not Christian. "Author of liberty, to Thee we sing!"

The nation was a couple of years away from the test run of its new electrical grid and half a year away from the trial run of its water grid. I-95 was not even half rebuilt. Metahumans and necrohumans were proving their worth to society in peace. Harold's influence reached only across Virginia, the Carolinas, and Delaware, slowly healing the land. Irrigation channels from the Jefferson Memorial just reached South Carolina and Philadelphia. The coal mines of West Virginia and the steel plants of Pennsylvania were just brought back online. The defense industry in Virginia, the pharmaceutical plants of Philadelphia, and the cloth mills of Georgia were at full capacity from two years of continuous warfare. New York's biotechnology and software industries had recovered somewhat; but the city had a long way to go if it was to reestablish itself as the nation's commercial and financial hub. Nuka-Cola headquarters had just produced its first batch since the war in Atlanta. Fission battery plants in northern Florida were not yet connected to the transportation grid.

In short, the Confederacy needed a short, victorious war, and the citizens of the Confederacy put all of their hopes and dreams on the Lone Wanderer, Champion of the Confederacy.

The Lone Wanderer did not know if he had it in him. It seemed a miracle that he won the war for the Capital Wasteland, and that was with Liberty Prime and the Brotherhood at his back. Life wasn't hard when he had nothing to lose.

"Long may our land be bright!" he continued at the top of his lungs. The enemy was finally in range of the longest ranged infantry weapons such as sniper rifles and missile launchers. Fawkes, armored from head to toe like a medieval knight, stood in front of him.

"With freedom's holy light!" his army answered.

"Protect us by Thy might!" Liberty Prime sang, though he obviously had no need of protection divine or otherwise.

"Great God our King!" every Confederate shouted.

For this day, though, the Lone Wanderer decided that the Commonwealth could wait. Things were going to be ugly when the city's crazed metahumans rallied. "Fix bayonets!"

* * *

The treaty took place at the Burger King headquarters. The Lone Wanderer supposed that it was fitting, munching away at his Brahmin whopper. Gathered were the leaders of the various factions that controlled parts of Miami, who were undergoing the process of pledging allegiance to the Confederacy. Sarah was pleased to inform him that the Southern Florida chapter of the Brotherhood had, in fact, survived. It had yet to be verified whether these factions had committed crimes against humanity, of course, but for the time being the Confederacy had no choice but to believe them.

"How's the burger," a necrohuman approached to shake his hand.

"Tastes like freedom," he responded. "With a side of possible radiation but I can handle that."

"Daniel Kramer, descendant of the founder of Burger King," the necrohuman beamed.

"Call me Ishmael," the Lone Wanderer took his hand. "And with our water purification project upgraded come September, you'll be producing radiation-free Brahmin burgers in no time. Kind of surprised Miami seems not to have been as badly affected as most."

"Matthew Burns, my ancestor's co-founder you understand, was a paranoid man. When he saw what the nukes did to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he voluntarily funded many defense projects. Only two nukes went off anywhere near Miami, and none in the city."

"That'd explain a lot. I understand that this building is actually built atop a Vault?"

"Indeed it is. Best cloning technologies in the whole Eastern Seaboard," Daniel paused. "Well… with Brahmin, at any rate."

"Really? I'm not sure how much Sarah told you about our situation and all, but cloning Brahmin is a wonderful addition to the Confederacy. Our boys and girls need some meat in their bellies, you understand?"

"Secretary of State Lyons is a swell woman."

"I sense a 'but' in that statement."

"She is, ah… rather inflexible with the prices. Not every Vault has the same technologies, you know?" the necrohuman said, smacking his lips. "I understand that you are, erm… Champion of the Confederacy, no? You have the power to negotiate for the Confederacy?"

"Are you a war profiteer, Mr. Kramer?" Ishmael unfastened the holster for the Firelance. Behind him, Charon cocked his combat shotgun. Dogmeat growled at the owner of Burger King, though he didn't let go of his whopper at any rate.

"I understand that war is a time of exceptions," Daniel hastened to concede. "But my faction-"

"There are no factions within the Confederacy, Mr. Kramer," Ishmael interrupted.

"My people, then. The people of my vault. Do we not deserve some recompense for this technology we have preserved and perfected over time?"

"You will be rewarded with the goodwill of the citizens of the Confederacy and the safety provided by her armies. Your require more?"

"But there is a thing every capitalistic and democratic society needs: copyrights."

"Oh. Oh…." Ishmael had not yet considered the issue. In a rebuilding nation, one tended to share technologies for free so as to most efficiently produce materials and techniques. In the long term, however, any capitalistic society needed copyrights. "I apologize for Secretary Lyons's lack of understanding. She is a direct but uncompromising soul. Further, our nation does not have a proper legal system with trained lawyers and whatnot in place yet."

"A nation has to protect the property rights of its citizens."

"I was getting to that. In the absence of a proper judiciary system, and in the midst of war, I can only promise you that your people will receive twenty years' worth of copyrights on cloned cattle, but only after victory over the Commonwealth. I swear it upon my honor as Champion of the Confederacy, its Constitution, and its citizens, of which you are now one."

"And that's all I ask," Daniel said, before walking back towards his people. The Lone Wanderer suspected that the shrewd merchant had decided that it was the best he could get at the time, which was true.

"War profiteer," Paladin Cross sneered.

"Now, now. It's only natural to look after the interests of his people. You can't expect recently subjugated people to feel loyalty to the Confederacy," Ishmael said, stroking Dogmeat's chin. "It's also known as capitalism and democracy."

"They're all well and good in peace, but we're at war. The Commonwealth is pouring legions of battle-hardened raiders down the I-95, heading straight for New York City. The city will be under siege within two weeks and one if they have boats."

"I hope they come by boat. They have a rude awakening waiting for them," the Lone Wanderer was privy to top secret information about the city's defenses, and the sea route was, for all intents and purposes, closed to Commonwealth forces.

"Another glorious day in the Confederate army! Fall in, ye maggots!" RL-3 said, his propaganda heuristics having been reprogrammed by the Lone Wanderer to reflect the change in allegiance. Ishmael was nothing if not his father's son.

"Stand down, sergeant. These good people are citizens, or soon-to-be citizens, of the East Coast Confederacy."

"Yes, sir, Captain, sir!" in this the robot was mistaken. Ishmael had no official rank within the Confederate army.

"Some sane metahumans," Fawkes noted. "Some are even veterans of the Master."

"It's been happening more frequently as time goes by," Paladin Cross said. "Probably more so as metahumans realize that the Master no longer lives, and that they are free."

"As long as no one forces the FEV on a human being, that is," Clover noted. She had surprising insights for a none-too-bright formerly brainwashed slave sometimes.

"One day, we'll perfect the process. I can see how super-strength and immortality would be appealing to some people. As long as we can weed out the schizophrenia and hyper-aggression somehow."

"Would you be willing to do it?" Fawkes asked.

"No, my friend. I'm at peace with my own mortality."

"Don't make peace with it so easily," the metahuman growled.

"Oh, I'll go out kicking and screaming alright. It's just that I have no desire to live forever. It would be like… the president of the Enclave. Artificial longevity might give me similar views, and that scares me more than my mortality does."

"As long as you know that you can't die yet."

"Of course. It is my role to lead the Confederacy to reconquer the lands our ancestors tamed. Then we'll take Canada. South America is next. I will not die or rest until humanity is united, triumphant against the perils of the wastelands and a little wiser for the suffering unleashed in a mutually destructive war. We'll perfect the G.E.C.K., and humanity will enjoy its well-deserved golden age as we spread across the galaxy." Ishmael caressed the comforting contours of the Firelance. Mothership Zeta was conclusive evidence that there were other habitable planets out there, and that aliens existed. According to the recordings, the aliens had on board a United States officer who possessed the launch codes for America's nuclear arsenal.

The filthy aliens may well have been the cause of the nuclear apocalypse. If the goat-fucking whoresons were, Sally would find out eventually, and if they were responsible for that war, Ishmael had every intention of finding their homeworld and raping it. If they had a leader, he was going to find him, rip his head off, and shit down his throat. If they were capable of love, he would destroy everything they loved. The Brotherhood had yet to figure out how the aliens' technologies worked, but they'd find out sooner or later.

"I will do whatever it takes to lead the Confederacy to that point."

* * *

"It is September 20th, of the year 2280, and the East Coast Confederacy stretches from Manhattan to Miami!"

The reconstructed White House was home to President Lyons, elected by the people of Virginia and Delaware nearly two years ago, who was now delivering a speech to the notables of the Confederacy. It was, perhaps, the only building in the Capital Wasteland that benefited from a beautification project. Most of the reconstruction effort was focused on digging the canals, patching up the highways, rebooting the electrical grid, and reactivating dormant factories.

If the celebration could be compared to any, it would have been the triumphs granted to victorious Roman generals. On the one hand was the adoring crowd and loyal soldiers. On the other was a woman telling him that he was only human.

Still, the Lone Wanderer had to put on a happy face if only for the sake of the Confederacy.

"I don't like it," Lyons the junior, as Ishmael called her, said. "Even with Liberty Prime to defend the city, we won't be able to launch any major offensives until, well, who knows how long. There is no guarantee that production and recruitment will even keep up with the attrition rate in New York. We can't afford to divert troops from the south yet."

"It's not like I'm going in without support," Ishmael reasoned. "With most of their veteran troops tied up besieging New York, the Commonwealth only has token forces left in their heartland. I'm take Fawkes, Charon, and Dogmeat. If I'm in mortal danger, I have an alien ship that can teleport me and my team away from danger. Also, the Commonwealth has dissident factions-"

"So do we!" Sarah hissed. "You know the Atlanta only joined us reluctantly. Florida was subjugated, top to bottom, by brute force. There are some who don't believe we can live in harmony with the super mutants and the ghouls."

"They're better soldiers than most normal humans are."

"That's not the point, and you know it. We've expanded too quickly and now we face the choice of either defending our borders or risk losing a lot of people fighting a costly war against Massachusetts."

"One way or another, the Confederacy cannot tolerate the existence of an organized state sponsoring slavery of sentient beings. Our terms were fair: the androids work for their creators until they return the investment with interest."

"Yes, we have to oppose them one day on the battlefield, but it didn't have to be now."

"You'd think I started this war or something by your tone. I haven't. They started it because they were afraid of losing their golden goose. Also, we can't expand west without taking care of our north. We don't have an east and our south has just been secured. If only we can take out Massachusetts, we can expand west without worries unless we run into a nation as big as ours."

"And if there is, and they are stronger?"

"We can always bluff about the satellite-based missiles."

"Because that worked so well against the Commonwealth."

"Aren't you in a grim mood today," Ishmael mixed her a nuka-cola and whiskey.

"Who h-had the bright idea of getting you to bartend?" Charon grunted, a sip of beer away from drunken unconsciousness.

"Bartending's a lot like medicine: a careful mixture of chemicals," Ishmael flicked a cherry dipped in vodka into Charon's open mouth. As he suspected, it was all that was needed to send the necrohuman over the edge. "I might not be a fully trained doctor, but I know emergency field aid and chemicals better than most."

"I don't want you to knock me out," Sarah glanced pointedly at the bodyguard.

"The average woman should be able to handle three or four nuka-colas with whiskey in an hour. Look at Star Paladin Cross. She's had six shots of nuka-cola with whiskey and three shots of Sidecar in the last thirty minutes. A year ago, we wouldn't have had lemonade to make a Sidecar."

"That's your argument for expansion? Luxury?"

"I want a Brahmin steak in every frying pan, a Gutsy janitor model in every home, four automated laser turrets in every lawn, and a Chrysler in every garage. That's one of the things I fight for, speaking of which the Great Lakes area is next after Massachusetts."

"Not up?"

"The area north of Boston never had much of a population to begin with. It's unlikely even an organized nation could have the numbers to seriously threaten us. If we take the automobile factories in Detroit and the fusion battery research facilities and factories in Ohio, our forces will become a great deal more mobile; we'll produce our own military grade tanks and APCs, not repair the ones meant for the scrapyard like we do now."

"It'll take time. We're overstretched as it is."

"Florida and the outskirts of Atlanta will come under heel eventually," Fawkes said. Metahumans were not capable of intoxication, so Ishmael had to content himself with serving him flavorful drinks meant for women. "As soon as they can pull their own weight, police their own territories, and send representatives to the Senate, we can pull our troops up to Connecticut."

"Among other things, Connecticut has excellent medical facilities at Hartford. Might be the second medical coup the Confederacy needs, after our recovery of Bell Laboratories and Johns Hopkins," Cross said, slamming back her fourth Sidecar. "Connecticut also has Yale University. If it is just half the treasure trove in knowledge Princeton was, we might be able to match the Institute for their civilian application technologies."

"That might be stretching it. It is common knowledge from the Pentagon archives that, in the East Coast, MIT and Harvard received the lion's share of research grants," Sarah gestured for another drink.

"The Institute will be a problem, no doubt. The ideal solution would be to negotiate with the heads of the Institute directly rather than have our words mangled by the Commonwealth's diplomats. For the time being, though, raising sympathetic allies from New Haven to Hartford will be my primary objective. Did New York report success in pulling the cadets back from West Point?"

"I think so. Takes the damnedest part of a year to train proper soldiers, never mind proper officers. Wouldn't want that investment to go to waste."

"Still no success with replicating alien or Enclave technologies, though."

"Should've captured some of them alive. My mistake."

"Any word from our would-be friends in Maine?" Fawkes asked.

"Yes. There is no uniting force north of Massachusetts, though some Commonwealth troops are looking to take New Hampshire. Maine is united, for the important parts anyway, and ready to buy time for New York."

"They have nothing worth the trouble in New Hampshire," a brotherhood scribe who Ishmael pushed over into drunken stupor three hours ago said, stirring awake.

"Excuse me," Ishmael got the attention of a Paladin passing by. "This scribe needs a bed, and some water, asap."

"Drunken as he was, he's right," Cross said.

"We also thought hunting the remnants of the Enclave would be a cakewalk. They nearly blew up the Citadel and put Liberty Prime out of commission for nearly two years," Sarah said.

"True. They have a lot of renewable energy up there: wind, hydro. They also have heavy machinery and electronic parts plants. Not enough electronics to match a tenth of the West Coast, but still. Maine's naval shipyards can also make a difference if the Commonwealth thinks that far ahead. Lumber mills and furniture plants aplenty in Vermont if they want wooden ships as just transports to take their troops to D.C. With the reconstruction of Rivet not complete yet, we have few naval assets to stop them."

"They expect to have power running in Rivet in two months or so," a Hispanic man said, settling down on a stool at the bar. "One apple martini."

Ishmael raised an eyebrow, but proceeded to make one. "And you know this how, mister…?"

"Heh, I'm Martinez. Senior engineer overseeing the Rivet project. Never expected the Lone Wanderer to serve me drinks, though."

"So it's true? They managed to weld the pieces together?" Sarah asked.

"Once the tugboats brought the pieces in to the shipyards in Delaware and we were supplied with steel sheets from Pennsylvania, it was only a matter of time."

"You, sir, are a credit to our nation. Drink's on the house," Ishmael even added a preserved olive in it.

"Erm… what's this green thing?"

"It's an olive. You'll like it, eventually. Very rare in the wasteland these days. One piece used to go for five hundred caps or so."

"Salty," the engineer grimaced, but ate it anyway.

"So how long until the Rivet is combat-worthy?" Cross asked.

"Don't know. They took a lot of engineers and mechanics north to set up defenses for chokepoints in Manhattan. They're also setting up new laboratories in the Mall, seeing as it's one of the few buildings that have power 24/7, for the scientists evacuating from Columbia University. I have maybe thirty men left at the shipyards."

"Not enough mechanics, engineers, scientists, and doctors," Sarah said. "Same shit different day I guess. We're doing fairly well on training mechanics and factory workers, but it'll take half a decade for us to train anywhere near enough engineers. Even more for scientists and doctors."

"We need smaller, more efficient computers. We need more powerful but compact processors for our robots. We can solve these problems if we take the Institute," said Fawkes.

"Ah, a mildly intelligent metahuman. You must be Fawkes," Martinez raised his glass in salute.

"As long as we're making our Christmas wish list, we also need to clear out Yao Guai, Mirelurk, and Deathclaw breeding grounds in Georgia, along the Hudson, South Carolina, and Florida. Don't forget those God damned alligator mutants in Florida, either. We lost power armored troops to those things."

"Too bad they breed in caves. Otherwise we could use Vertibirds."

"The point being," Saray brought the conservation back to its starting point. "We need this war with the Commonwealth to end quickly. Otherwise, we might stagnate and worse. We've come too far to let that happen. I doubt there're any other states out there that combine Old World ideals with newfound wisdom."

"One of the traders from across the Mississippi told me about a Caesar's Legion or something or another. Not as close to us as the Kingdom of Louisiana is, but still. An army of slaves in which women are valued only for their vaginas," said Cross.

"Vaginas are very valuable. If our nation wasn't so insecure, I'd recommend maternal leaves for the female soldiers. In the long term, we need a lot of vaginas," Ishmael inspected the ice he had left over. The shape and physical state of ice made a difference in cocktails, and the first training bartenders received was to sort out ice.

At least, according to a guide he picked up a year ago in the pacification of western South Carolina and Georgia.

"Any newborn states need high birth rates, and high birth rates require many vaginas," Cross agreed. "Too bad so many of our vaginas have some kind of radiation or another. Can't exactly risk bringing two-headed and three-eyed babies into the world. We need more doctors."

"Radiation is coming under control, especially with pure water and produce from farmland irrigated by pure water."

"Still, no telling where the women might pick up radiation. Irradiated objects, proximity to toxic wastes, nuka-cola, even."

"If we ban nuka-cola, we'll have a rebellion on our hands," Ishmael grimaced. "We can only console ourselves with having successfully reduced the radiation in our newly produced batches. We produce enough RadAways to deal with such minor radiation sources. Besides, the metahumans are addicted to the stuff. A metahuman rebellion is not something I'm stopping. Until we develop some kind of an entertainment industry, we can't expect people to lay off alcohol, tobacco, and nuka-cola. That's why I suggested we power the Disney World in Orlando as soon as possible."

"That's a lie. You just want to see what it'd be like when it's powered," Sarah accused.

"My interest in the place is purely academic," Ishmael scoffed. "And patriotic, I might add. Liberty Prime said that Disney World is one of the reasons communism can never be superior to capitalism and democracy."

"Bullcrap. Liberty Prime never said that."

"I maintain that he would if he could."

"Did you know they have an amusement park called Six Flags in Massachusetts?"

"Might be a place I can find some potential allies. I'll check it out."

"See?"

"For your information, amusement parks have always been good to me. They have never failed to provide me with allies and war materials. Hell, we recruited our best scouts for Florida at Disney World!"

"Sheer coincidence that amusement parks tend to be so easily defensible."

"See? That's why we need to power Disney World. It'll serve as an excellent fort from which to defend our supply lines."

"Our scribes say-"

"Fuck them and fuck their mothers. I'll finger-fuck their whore sisters, too. I'm right, you're wrong, and that's the end of this argument. When I come back from Massachusetts, I'd better find me some fully functional Disney World, Sarah."

"In your dreams, asshole. Now I have half a mind to sabotage the rides."

"You wouldn't dare! I'm going to tell Liberty Prime! Sabotage is communism!"

"He'll understand priorities."

"Enough, children," Cross hissed. "You're Secretary of State and Champion of the Confederacy. You will keep your childish bickering in private, and not in public." As if to emphasize her statement, a CNN cameraman took a photo of the bar.

"I was surprised you don't look as fat as you are in pictures."

"Blow me, jackass."

"Out of curiosity Star Paladin Cross, just how exactly did our Security Council imagine they'd keep my absence a secret?"

"We have an android who's willing to be your body double. He's going to keep to a deep underground Pentagon facility, supposedly doing important research that'll turn the tide of war up north."

"I'd like to meet this patriot some time before I leave."

"That can be arranged. All the androids who had been freed have been interrogated for information about the Commonwealth, but it would do you good to speak to one, at least."

"The androids even remembered some schematics and software advances of the Institute. They're being test-run in the Pitt first in the weapons factories. Some six percent increase in efficiency, I hear," Sarah added.

"Fordism at its best. It's nothing really new."

"No, they evolved beyond that somehow. Miniaturization and personalization combined with mass production. We have a long way to go to catch up."

"We have women in work places. We're certainly more globalized," Ishmael scowled.

"You do admit to the other charges, though?"

"We're bigger. We're relatively new. We need more time."

"Exactly, whereas the Commonwealth has all the makings of an established nation. That's why the situation must never come to marching to Boston with Liberty Prime in tow," said Cross.

"…You want me to pit their people against their government. As plans go, that relies on blind luck."

"We'll prepare for the worst, but hope for the best."

"That's like saying the situation's not as bad as you feared but not as good as you hoped."

"Exactly. It's truth."

"What kind of support can I expect?"

"Mothership Zeta, the Railroad, independents in Connecticut, dissidents in Massachusetts, resistance in Vermont and New Hampshire," Sarah recited.

"He raised a mortal to the skies."

"You mean no Confederate support?" Fawkes snarled. "Ishmael, Charon, and I practically founded the Confederacy, and you're telling me the Confederacy will not support us? We, who are one of the few reasons the regular humans, the metahumans, and the necrohumans are living in harmony?"

"Our resources are all tied up in the south or the New York front. Make contact with our Railroad contacts there. They've scouted out a great deal of New England. There is history there."

"History is a nightmare I'm trying to wake up from."

"It's history that might save your mission."

"I think it'll be safer to start in New Haven, and work my way up to Hartford."

"You'll get caught if the Commonwealth decides to occupy Connecticut."

"Still, organizing resistance at New Haven will prevent the knowledge stored at Yale University from falling into Commonwealth hands and give the Confederacy more time to redirect troops from Virginia, Delaware, and Georgia. Think of it as insurance, like Liberty Prime."

"We can't be sure that Liberty Prime can hold the line. The Commonwealth is believed to possess many high-ordnance weapons."

"Still, because of the nuclear meltdown near New York City years before the Great War, the infrastructure of the city is relatively untouched other than from radiation. The commies didn't think to waste a bomb on a city that was deserted. New York and Pennsylvanian forces combined should be able to hold off a siege for half a year, at least."

"We can't afford to waste half a year on-"

"It won't come to that. It'll be a month in Connecticut, tops, and then I'll infiltrate Boston via Cambridge."

"At this rate, you'll never graduate med school," Sarah chuckled.

"I'll settle for victory. You think they'll refund my tuition?"

"We can supply you with caps at least," said Cross. "Especially when the people of Florida turn in their caps for Confederate dollars."

"Good. Haggling's never been my forte."

"On that note, do try to haggle."

"Rarely needed to. I make my own medicines and repair my own gear. Just make sure to keep sending bullets, food, and pure water to Zeta," the Lone Wanderer took off his bartending uniform.

"Good luck, you three," Sarah said, though Charon was quite unconscious and draped over Fawkes's shoulder.

"May we all have faith in each other to survive our coming trials," Fawkes said, and turned to follow Ishmael. "For they conquer who believe they can."

* * *

I had free time in which I wanted to write. There will probably be no updates until February, for this or any other story.

I consider stats to be bull. I'll leave that to the readers' imagination. On that note, his S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats are not all nine, as you can make it in Broken Steel. Some are lower than four. On the subject of Broken Steel, this is about two years after that, I think.

The "hero" is going to do some questionable things in this journey. He already did some questionable things. The Confederacy will have some questionable policies. The future of mankind is far from assured. This is the post apocalyptic Earth, and Ishmael will do whatever he thinks is necessary. The Confederacy will do whatever it has to do to survive.

I suppose they'll eventually reach New Vegas. This is around the time of the battle for Hoover Dam.

People who can't discern where the protagonist's name comes from, and is of Western civilization, ought to read _Moby Dick_ and the Bible. I am not in the least bit Christian (I claim that Origin of Species is Western canon), but literature from Western canon are mostly gibberish without basic knowledge of the Bible. Humanist writing is unreadable without some basic knowledge of Aristotle or Plato's works. There are some works that are essential to the understanding of other works, and the Bible is the greatest of them all. I could add footnotes, but I won't. I could write references, but their copyrights have long since expired (except for Fallout, for obvious reasons). Be literate, or don't read this story.

That said, this story probably requires decent college education in the humanities for most Americans. I suppose well-read high school students could read it. It really just depends on the individual.

You could read it as science fiction, too, and completely ignore twenty eight hundred years of our intellectual evolution as a species.

Feel free to review. If you're going to resort to name calling, do so on a PM please.


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